Ten Ideas to Get Started With Social Media Promotion
Let’s get something out of the way: not everyone loves social media. We get it; some people downright hate sites like Facebook or Twitter, particularly those of older generations who didn’t grow up with that sort of thing. However, like generations before who didn’t see the point of the TV, there will always be some new technology that business owners need to adapt to. And much like the TV, social media doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
So, if a potential customer is going to be mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, you may as well post something to promote your business to them. If people are going to look up information about you, you may as well post your contact info and a link to your website on a page dedicated to your brand. Did you recently host a special event? May as well post some photos to social media to highlight it!
Do you see the pattern here?
If you operate a business, charity, or whatever it might be, you’re already doing things to promote, advertise or inform people about what you do. All you have to do is repurpose some of those things for social media. It just takes a little forward thinking to get started.
As always, let’s take a moment to define what “social media” even means.
The easiest way to explain is just to give examples: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and a plethora of others have emerged since the trend began. Social media is essentially a business model where people’s time and attention are the products being sold. The owners of the platform make money by running ads and showing them to its users. All of the content is generated simply by the users uploading photos, posting their thoughts for the day, or interacting with content someone else has posted.
So, this is where you come in, posting something to get people to pay attention to your organization. However, you’re going to be competing with people uploading pictures of their dessert, arguing about politics, or sharing cat videos. If you’re going to compete with… *ahem*…“quality” content like that, you’ll need to do whatever you can to stand out.
So, here are Branch & Vine Media’s ten ideas for getting the most out of social media promotion:
1. Get on Social Media
That might sound rather… obvious, but you’d be surprised how many places don’t even bother to create a Facebook page for their business. Obviously, it’s best to populate that page with engaging content, but even having something on social media is better than being absent entirely. Just create a page with your logo as the profile picture, and put your contact info and business hours in the “info” or “about” section. This way, people can at least find you, even if you don’t plan to post often.
2. “Pin” Something to the Top of Your Page
Most social media platforms allow you to “pin” a post or photo to the top of your page, so that visitors always see it first. If you don’t plan to post to your account often, it’s definitely worth creating a post that briefly explains who you are and what you do. It’s definitely best to update your “pinned” post from time, but even an old post that’s still relevant is better than having something outdated sitting at the top of your page from an old event or promotion.
3. You Have a Smartphone; Use Its Camera!
While we’d all love to hire a professional photographer to capture our event or promotion, that’s not always financially possible. Thankfully, smartphone cameras have come a long way in recent years! While you’re still not going to get photos anywhere near what a professional could capture, they’ll still be usable, possibly even “pretty good” with a little practice (we’ve covered some photography basics in this post). Remember, the important part is giving people a glimpse into who you are and what you do. They’ll be willing to forgive a mediocre photo if the subject matter is interesting
4. Your Smartphone Takes Videos, Too!
I must advise some degree of caution with this one, because not everyone has the skills or the charisma to look natural on camera. That’s perfectly ok, because not everyone has to be good at everything. But if you consider yourself a decent public speaker, you may as well give it a shot. Maybe your organization is setting up for a special event. Maybe you’re getting in a shipment of an exciting new product. Maybe you just want to update everyone on something new as efficiently as you can. The point is, it needs to be something YOU are excited about. Enthusiasm is contagious, but apathy can be as well. Whatever you decide to make a video about, make sure you’re passionate about it, and that your passion comes across on camera.
Also, don’t forget “K.I.S.S”, or “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. A touch on the negative side, perhaps, but certainly relevant to our discussion. People on social media have very short attention spans. Say something catchy at the beginning, and keep it to a minute or less. For example: “Did you know that I’ve been able to save my customers an average of $100 by upgrading their…” yadda, yadda, you get the point. Keep it short and to the point, and say something to catch people’s interest without being dishonest!
5. Work With a Graphic Designer
Contrary to popular belief, graphic design really doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Most designers are good at working quickly and efficiently and will be willing to work within your budget. Plus, do you really want to take a crack at graphic design yourself? People earn four-year degrees in this discipline, and I’m guessing you worked pretty hard to become proficient in yours as well. Being willing to invest a little money can go a long way toward making your social media content look more polished.
For example, in my last post, I mentioned a fictional business called “Mike’s Pizza Shop”. Let’s suppose “Mike’s” wanted to run a special promotion for 10% off a pizza if a customer mentions seeing the post on social media. My wife is a designer by trade (and also helps out at Branch & Vine whenever she can), so I had her whip up a social media image based on this imaginary promotion. Here’s what she came up with:
Looks pretty clean and professional, right? It took her under an hour to create this, and she probably would’ve charged less than $100 for it had it been a freelance project. Invest a little money and work with a professional designer, and you’ll almost certainly get better results than attempting to do it yourself.
6. Post something regularly
I’m preaching to myself as much as anyone with this point, but updating regularly is quite important. If people don’t have a reason to check your page, then they won’t! Remember all the above points we’ve mentioned so far? Keep those in mind, and every time an idea for social media occurs to you, just jot it down somewhere. You can always come back to it later.
One thing we tend to do here at B&V is to stockpile content for a later date. For example, I write most of these blog posts well in advance of actually posting them. That way, I can focus on knocking out a few of them at a time, then moving on to something else. Consider doing likewise with your social media accounts.
7. Collaborate with Others
I have an ongoing relationship with some friends who have a YouTube Channel which I occasionally make content for. They tend to give us a “shout out” when something we’ve made for them appears in one of their videos, and we do likewise for them! If you can find someone to develop a professional relationship with, you can share each other’s content and thus expose a new audience to your organization.
Obviously, this is easier in the creative or artistic circles than the more practical ones, but don’t overlook possible opportunities. After all, social media is meant to be a networking platform!
8. Share Your Posts on Your Personal Page
If your business has a Facebook account, you probably have a personal account too. You may as well use it to share posts from your business account from time to time. Please note, it’s important not to overdo this. If you share every single post from your business page, all you’re likely to do is annoy everyone. However, social media platforms typically view interactions such as sharing, “retweeting”, “liking”, etc. as an indication that the content is more interesting or useful and will show it to more people. While your interactions alone won’t be enough, it can at least get the ball rolling.
9. Hire a Social Media Manager
If your business has grown to the point where you have a few employees, but you can’t be bothered to deal with something like social media yourself, consider hiring someone to do it for you. Now, unless you’re a rather large company, chances are, it makes no sense to hire a full-time employee just for managing social media. There simply won’t be enough for that person to do in most cases.
However, there are people who do this sort of thing for a living, sometimes as independent contractors. This option is significantly cheaper than hiring an employee, and saves you the trouble of having to figure it our yourself. You’ll still have to work with an independent contractor to help them get a feel for what sort of content you want to post, but it should free you up from having to log in and do it yourself. If you really can’t be bothered to touch social media AT ALL, then have whoever does your marketing take care of it.
The point is, there are options out there, and not wanting to bother with social media yourself isn’t enough of an excuse to ignore it entirely.
10. Don’t Treat Your Page Like a Sales Pitch
There’s no way around it; ads are annoying.
While there certainly is a time and a place for ads on social media, you don’t necessarily want that to be what appears on your page all the time. There are many inexpensive options for running ads on most sites, and you can often run an ad without appearing on your page at all. This can be beneficial if you don’t want to overwhelm your followers with ads.
If you’re constantly trying to sell something to your followers, they’re probably going to feel manipulated. It’s much better to focus on content that entertains or informs your followers in some way. Explain how you make your products, show practical examples of how your charity helps people, post a funny meme that’s relevant to the industry you’re in, etc. The more creative and engaging you can be, the more likely people are to have positive associations with your brand.
So there you have it! Get your creative juices flowing, and start promoting yourself on social media! You can follow Branch & Vine Media on our social media accounts if you need more examples (we don’t post daily or anything, but maybe you’ll learn something!).
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BranchandVineMedia
